Seven New York Metropolis residents have been charged in a wide-ranging, $20 million present card rip-off that focused aged folks nationwide, authorities stated Thursday.
The fees had been filed in Nassau County on Lengthy Island, the place a number of of the victims lived, based on investigators.
Police stated the scammers used spam pop-up messages on computer systems and textual content messages on cellphones, based on WABC. The messages made quite a lot of false claims however all the time inspired victims to purchase present playing cards to residence enchancment shops comparable to Lowe’s and Dwelling Depot.
Scammers then used the present playing cards to purchase $20 million value of residence enchancment merchandise, together with copper pipping, insulated wiring and scorching water heaters, authorities stated. They then resold the merchandise to plumbing and building companies.
Six Queens males — Sky Lin, 36; Lifa Wang, 49; Yu Lin, 35; Jie Lin, 32; Lixi Wang, 40, and Jia Bin Chen, 39 — had been charged with cash laundering and conspiracy, Patch reported. One Staten Island man, 38-year-old Hai Tao Liu, was hit with the identical prices.
